One of the things I noticed in gSender that doesnt seem like a big deal till you run into it.
UGS in the Z probe setting has a “Probe distance”
What it does, is decided how far its going to travel before it gives up looking.
in gSender its about 15mm before it dies saying it couldnt find the metal block.
I like to keep my bit about 1" about the work piece (25mm) so I have to run things much closer then I would like.
Its now become a bigger issue, since I am switching over to Limit/homing
switches, and it homes off the TOP of Z axis, so my travel to Probing is at times 50 - 100mm away
I would like to see the same option to decide how far its going to travel before it gives up.
I will also mention, that in UGS, after it finds Z, it returns to where it started the probe search. rather then some pre-determined value that gSender is going too
I guess it’s finding the right balance but perhaps we could look at something like this in the future. I can understand wanting to keep the bit a comfortable distance from the block. As far as the Z, since fast probing can only go so quickly it would probably be best to just rapid jog the bit to the approximate height first before beginning the probing procedure.
To be honest I kind of like it how ugs has done it they allow you to put the value that you want and they use that value to decide how far the travel is going to be
One would argue the only thing you guys need to do is decide what value you want
This is an issue for me as well. I am using gSender with a CNC4Nebie HSNC4836 machine. It has limit switch at the top of Z axis . Total z travel is 175mm. If I am probing anything below -157mm it gives me soft limit alarm. I have to disable soft limits to probe my spoilboard. Please add adjustable Probe Distance setting.
In my case, I keep getting errors that the commanded travel is exceeding the soft limits. Of course, travel won’t actually exceed the limit, because the bit will touch the Z probe plate and halt, but because the initial commanded movement would exceed the limits if performed, I get an error 2 and the tool doesn’t move at all. I can avoid this by making sure the tool is far enough above the limit before starting the probing… but that might only work for the fast-movement phase, since the slow movement phase starts just above the probe. I can work around that by increasing the retraction distance, but that makes it slow.
Setting the probe distance would be one way to solve my problem. I think a better one is to have gSender compute min(, ) and send that movement command. That way the movement order will never exceed the Z limit.
I may take a stab at making this change and send a PR. Any pointers to the relevant part(s) of the code would be appreciated, so I don’t have to send a lot of time searching.
Just a thought, and it’s probably not the best solution, but would increasing the “Z axis maximum travel”, $132 in the firmware, solve your problem?
I have a LongMill with an MDF spoil board and no tool length sensor so there is no way for me to have a soft limit that just kisses the spoil board. So for me I could set the Z axis travel to 1 mile and it wouldn’t affect my setup as my bits hit the spoil board before the machine runs out of travel anyway.
If I had a tool length sensor and an aluminum fixture plate I could see how this would be an unacceptable solution.
This feature is in Edge as “Z Probe Distance” and will be rolled into main along with the rest of the changes there , so if you’re on 1.1.7 you’ll need to wait for a main line release.
, so if you’re on 1.1.7 you’ll need to wait for a main line release.